MACE: After convention report.

Mace has come and gone once again. This year was different for me then years past for me. Each year for the past three years I have packed and prepared to head north not just to play games. But to spread the word of my very own game convention. But now that Storm-Con has drawn to a close. I looked to heading to Mace for the first year as an attendee. Not as a representative of another convention.

I actually was unsure of what this year would be like. I was always so aware of the fact that much of what I attended the convention for over the years would not be a part of the con for me this year. It left me feeling odd as we arrived. The sensation went away almost as fast as I stepped off the escalator and onto the con room floor. I was as always warmly greeted by the con staff as I checked in to get my badge. I looked at my games and then took to a quick walk through.

Old habits nearly took over. One of my favorite things about arriving slightly early to a convention is you get that time to track down old friends that you only see at cons. You can share some stories and catch up with vendors you know and game designers. Its kind of calm before the storm. I quickly realized that the only thing that had really changed with anyone I would talk to at this years Mace would simply not asking if I would see them at my convention the next year.

I only ran two games this year at the convention. Both of them were Numenera. I ran the Spider Knight from the Weird Discoveries 10 instant adventures book that recently was released. The Flow Chart design and good theme make for an easy game to run with many options. This really makes for a great low prep high quality game for a convention. Where you’re sitting down with gamer’s that you are not familiar with. Often its these types of games that will have a player at the table throw you unexpected curve balls. The layout/mind map style really helps to keep things flowing the right direction as well as give you an excellent visual of where to take a group if they “Travel off the path”.

My second game that I ran was the new adventure “The Hideous Game”. I decided that I really liked this adventure but I wanted to give the players a chance to experience a little bit more of the city then what was presented. So I dipped back in to the Weird Discoveries book and took A snippet from the adventure Greed. Adding a few murders by each of the cities bridges. To tie this back into “The Hideous Game.” I had the first encounter of the story line occur on the Kings Bridge. I Then dropped an encounter location in the market by the Water Dancers because I found the location so awesome. Thank you Cypher Chronicles.

I had the pleasure of playing many games this year. More so than years in the past. Several that are now on my list of must buy games. I think my fellow gamer’s will enjoy them as much as I did. This also has moved me into a new realm of reviews I will begin doing soon as well. Board Games and Card Games. Yes, it is true I have done some in the past. But I have mostly left this to other bloggers. With extra time and energy freed up that I used to invest in Convention related things. It was the next natural choice to put that extra efforts going forward into my blog.

As Friday was rolling to a close I had the chance to sit down and play Sheriff of Nottingham. I must say with a table full of Roleplayer’s this game rapidly moves from a top tier game to an out of control hit of a game! We laughed and played and bribed our way to the two full hour of one of the most memorable games I have had in years. As Saturday rolled to a close I finally drug myself to my room for sleep around 3:30 am. I would find myself looking for a copy of this game to buy for the rest of the convention. Sadly I was unable to pick up a copy of the game. But no worries I called my FLGS at home and ordered a copy that I hope to pick up around the time this blog posts.

Saturdays focus was all on my RPG’s I sat in on a game and then ran two of my own as mentioned above. In my free time between games I wandered through the con hall and checked on many of the RPG’s and Board games vendor tables that had set up to show off their products for the event. As I was speaking with the author and creator of Kromore The RPG. Charles White from Fabled Environments and I bumped into me and encouraged more than one of the vendors to send some product my way. As it turned out far more of the vendors were interested then I had thought there would be. SO as of this week I have a very large back log of things that I will be delving into.

On Sunday before I left for the trek home I had the pleasure to sit down for and get a long needed demo for the Deck Building game Hull Breach. Two things that I learned in this demo. First the team that runs the demos for Hull Breach are a cut above other demo teams.
These guys not only run a wonderful game they are a pleasure to chat with. They bring the world of Hull Breach to life and really make you want to be part of it! I can hardly forgive myself that Hull Breach had come to Storm-Con repeatedly and I had yet to play this game. Well the hooks are in and they are in deep. I love this game !

So to wrap things up. It was an awesome convention. I got to hang out with awesome people. As well as life long friends ! In closing I can not wait until next year when I make that trek to North Carolina and play games with my friends at Mace next year !